more than Go
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Hikaru comes to terms with the fear he has towards Akira: Sai.


**fandom - Hikaru no Go**  
 **title - more than Go**  
 **pairing - Akira x Hikaru**  
 **rating - pg-13**  
 **description - Hikaru comes to terms with the fear he has towards Akira: Sai.**

 **Disclaimer – Hikaru no Go isn't mine. I'm just in love with Akira.  
**

"I am sorry, but you aren't a family member. So, you're not authorized to come in at this time. This is the policy."

"But I was the one that brought him in the ambulance!" I shouted as the doctor's expressionless face grew a bit paler. He puts his hand over my shoulder and gives it a quick, understanding squeeze. "Please do not worry."

I can feel the color leaving my face as I watch my hands become splotches, shades lighter than pink. My head turns to watch the hospital staff walk away and Akira's mother nods her head sympathetically. She closes her eyes and runs her fingers softly through my hair before going into his room.  
Her eyes want to say that this is the way it is: For Go, for society, for Akira.

Unable to hold back, I nod my head and smile politely. "I will wait here then."  
"But it will be days."  
"That is fine," I answer.  
"You-" She gives me a worried expression.  
"I'm used to it."

And so I run towards one of the emergency staircases. I run all the way to the top of the steps and put my palms on my eyes and cry silently, tears slipping through my hands. I haven't cried this much since Sai left.

"Sai…" I sigh.

Until now, even though I am nineteen, I am still your shadow.

 **more than Go.  
by miyamoto yui  
**

Three days earlier…

"I always hate this part," I whined as his bangs fell over his eyes as he bent down to pick up his black loafer. Standing on one leg in the genkan and balancing his gym bag over his shoulder, in response, he slightly nodded at me in his usual calm manner.  
"I know that we're rivals and all, but…" I sighed. "It's so hard chasing you when you're already a title holder. Even though you're here, right in front of me."

After tapping the tip of his shoes on the floor, he looked at me with a smile. He was so used to me and yet I could see that he had gotten older right in front of me. Always passionately silent, his eyes would convey all the words that I needed to know.

That's why I always held my breath whenever he spoke to me.

At that moment, he took my chin with his index finger and thumb and pulled me to kiss him. As his tongue sucked on mine in such a messy kiss, his fingers were tapping gently on the back of my neck.  
When he pulled back, he wiped my mouth with his white sleeve. Turning red, he looked away towards the door and told me, "I'll be back in a few days, Hikaru."

I bet no one ever knew how incredibly cute he was because he was such a ferocious adversary in the Go world, and yet such a shy, inexperienced boy when he was with me.

"The tournament's here in Tokyo and it's near my home. I should be the one going to the hotel or at least home! My mom complains I don't go there enough-"  
He shook his head. He wouldn't hear of it. Akira always felt it was his responsibility to spoil me in any way he could.

He gave me everything and anything I wanted.  
That in itself was burdensome and sweet at the same time.

Now, the moment had come. I wasn't 'Hikaru', his lover, anymore.

With his back completely facing me, he finally said, "I'll see you in two days, Shindou."  
"I'm almost there, Touya."

With one last nod, he left and the apartment door shut behind him.  
I locked it and turned around to face my reflection in the mirror. The more and more I saw myself becoming like Sai and surpassing him.

Yet, the closer and closer I came towards Touya, the further he seemed to become. The person he waited for was me,

and yet it wasn't.

 ***/*/*/***

On the day of the tournament, there was going to be television coverage exclusively for our game. Through the years, because of the amount of people that had been watching us increased, Akira and I became very popular. Even with the loss in the Hokuto Cup, we both came back with more admirers.  
It became very difficult to be together. Just walking down the street together was hard enough. I couldn't even hold his hand and sometimes I envied the Go stones themselves because they were touched more times by Akira than I'd ever been.

But there had been a role reversal.

When I got off the elevator in the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, Akira was heading towards me. My eyes opened a bit as I saw his navy suit before me. It was the one he'd never worn even though I bought it for him. He saved it for this? But what about the outfit his father made for him-  
"Beautiful," he mumbled and then put his hand over his mouth to clear his throat as he headed into the elevator.  
I stopped walking for a moment as my heart beat faster than before. Even though we had had many battles before, this was the first time he ever opened his mouth to talk to me. Was it because I wore the dark-patterned yukata he picked out for me? It was the one he bought for me when he went to Onomichi.  
I didn't ask him to do it. He was just crazy because I told him I was upset I couldn't go with him when he had to an exhibition event for Go. We'd been separated. He went towards the south as I headed towards the north.

How much we thought of one another that we'd wear the other's gift...

 _/"Here. I got this for you," he sternly said as he pulled out a plastic bag from his suitcase. He didn't even bother to take out the rest of his stuff. This gift was on top of everything. Actually, it was the first one of the stack._

"I know it's not the usual thing I get you." He opened the sliding door of our bedroom and let the wind in. Adjusting the curtains, the only thing that could be heard was the crinkling of the bag as I excitedly opened the bag on the tatami floor.  
"It's too traditional for your taste, isn't it?"

I flipped the yukata out and stood up with an awed look. It was dark, in blue, green, and murasaki. Maybe it was too traditional, but it was his colors, mine, and Sai's all in one.

"Where did you get it?"

"Onomichi. Honninbo Shusaku's birthplace."

I caught my breath. I turned around in surprise, happiness, and hurt, holding up the piece of clothing towards my chest. There was an ache that dug itself deeper within me so much that I couldn't move.  
"Thank you, Akira."

He came up to me and kissed the top of my head. Then, he kissed my ear as his hand went inside my half-buttoned shirt. "I missed you," he whispered as I dropped the yukata to the ground.  
"I always miss you," I said as I stared at the yukata when he pushed me towards the wall.

I repeated, "Always..." /

 ***/*/*/***

Five hours ago, everyone left us alone after he'd sealed his play onto the kifu. They weren't supposed to leave until we did, but he'd requested it.  
Maybe he'd learned some mental games from Ogata-sensei (via Kuwabara-sensei, who _still_ held the Honnibo title), but Akira knew it drove me nuts whenever he would be the last player to end the session. Then again, it was a challenge.

But today was different.

While everyone waited outside for our commentary, the small sparks of Touya's former, childish selfishness came out. He sat down and analyzed the goban before him.  
He'd never done that before whenever there was a tournament. He always waited to do it outside. Sometimes even I couldn't talk to him as he did so.

I sat there watching him carefully with my hands becoming fists on top of my thighs. He relentlessly eyed the goban, searching for something. I couldn't figure out what exactly until he mouthed, "Sai..."  
I took a deep breath.

Whenever he'd mentioned this name, it was hard for me. I loved Sai, but his admiration for Sai even made me jealous at times.

"Sai?"  
"This reminds me of the time I played internet Go with him." Slowly he looked up at me. "And the other day, Waya said you were his student."  
His eyes looked from side to side in confusion. "But he's wrong. I would have known that. I know you too well, both inside this world of Go and the Hikaru's that outside of it."

I was taken aback from his comment.

In bewilderment, he looked at me again. "This is your old self. This game resembles the first one I ever played with you."  
He smiled at me, but I didn't notice that my mouth had not moved.

I became a stone.  
I only knew how I felt when the tears came down and touched my skin.

"Hikaru...?"

I got up and didn't say a word. I was so happy that he finally knew Sai existed within me and yet I was so sad that that's what he'd been searching for. Where was I in the middle of this?  
Would I just be watching in the middle like with the game between Sai and the former Meijin, Touya Kouyo?

I ran out of the room. Pushing through all the reporters, players, and friends, I kept my head low and headed towards that all-too-familiar elevator. Right behind me, as the doors were closing, Akira held the door as it was about to crush his hand.  
He opened the door and pushed everyone back.

Then, when he turned around, he held my shoulders in anger. "Why did you run away from me?!"  
"Because you've caught up to my shadow!" I blurted out as I looked at him with hurt eyes.  
"What-"  
I looked down at the floor. "When will you ever see me as me and not as Sai…I've wondered about this and today proves that that day won't ever come." Then, I watched his eyes again. "I can't do this anymore."  
"Hikaru, why do you always run away when I mention S-"  
"I'm tired of waiting. I love you, but when will you look at me?"  
Akira was shaking by this time and grabbed my face to kiss me. Then, when he let go, he whispered into my ear, "Don't ever leave me, Hikaru. You're all I have..."

When the door was reaching the lobby of the Go Institute, Akira fell into my arms.

"Akira! Akira!" I shouted as we slipped to the floor and I held Akira in my arms. The panorama of cameras flashed before me. "Someone get an ambulance!"

On the way there, I held his hand, but his lifeless hand couldn't hold mine in return.

 ***/*/*/***

Even though I wasn't supposed to stay overnight, a nurse had felt sorry for me. In fact, she was a fan of mine, so she let me stay by Akira's side.  
It was very dark in the room and I was trying my best not to make a sound as I sat by him. I took a hold of his hand and watched him under the moonlight.

He had fainted because of overexhaustion. He was so tired from traveling and the continuous amount of challenges people gave him that his body gave way. He was clever and well-organized, but even he needed a mental break.  
I kept on telling him to take a break, but of course, he wouldn't listen to me. Go was his life and outside of it, it was me.

But in this life, you cannot serve two masters without killing yourself somehow.

Even though Akira looked very stern from the outside, he was very fragile. His feelings were very pure for everything around him. His views on the world were always very clear even though the world was not as accepting as he was.  
He always told me I was honest and that he admired me for blurting out what was on my mind, but I always envied how he never feared 'the future'.

You always move forward as if it is the most natural thing to do.  
Even when you don't know what's happening or what obstacles you will face, I never hear you complain or protest 'change'.

 _"Don't ever leave me, Hikaru. You're all I have..."_ This was the first time Akira ever told me anything like this. He always told me through gifts, smiles, his body, the games of Go, and his eyes.

I didn't want to say what I did in the elevator, but it was bubbling inside of me all these years. And to hear that in one swoop, he couldn't take it.  
I held his hand even firmer. "I'm sorry," I kept on saying over and over.

This was the day I was waiting for: What would I do once you and I caught up to Sai's level? Would this mean that I would have to say goodbye?

Wasn't that the most inevitable answer?

 ***/*/*/***

The match was postponed and two days had passed when he moved his fingers to tap my palm. I smiled as he weakly opened his eyes to look at me.  
Relieved, he stared at me with a quiet grin.

The morning sun made him look so much more handsome than he already was. I tugged on his braid. (I was playing with it while waiting for him to wake up.)

"Hi," I said as I immediately took my hands away to skin an apple for him to eat.

I fed him the apple slices, but then, he kissed each of my fingers. Closing his eyes, he tiredly pulled my hand over his heart. "Thank you for staying," he told me.  
"I hate you…" My eyes watched the floor become blurry. "...why do you always thank me for simple things like this?"  
"Because I always have nightmares that you will disappear from me."

"Nightmares?" I asked with a shocked face.

You mean I wasn't the only one tortured over this all these years?

"Ever since I met you, I had dreams that you would leave me alone. That I'd be left in the Go world by myself and then I wouldn't want to play anymore. Then, as the years went by, the dreams became more frequent. They transformed." He held my hand even harder.  
"Tranformed into what?"  
His eyes watched the ceiling, unable to look at me.  
"I was little girl in a small house in Maebashi. I loved to play Go because I had an imaginary friend. But it was you in an older form, but not too much older than you are now."  
Distressed, he turned his head to me. "I didn't understand…Hikaru?"

That explained why you would hold me in the morning or reach out while screaming my name whenever you woke up. And why you always desparately kissed me whenever we made love…

But hearing about his dream, I felt like a big burden had been lifted. I got up from my seat and wrapped my arms around him.

We were silent for a long while. I didn't know how much time had passed.

I looked up to the ceiling.  
Sai! Sai, thank you! You had tried to tell him something! Even through this dream, you'd tried to explain something to him for me!  
Thank you!

"Sai tried to tell you where he was." I smiled as I hugged him tighter. "And finally, I can tell you. When I'm ready, I can finally tell you and you will believe me."

You won't look at someone else. It will only be me from now on, right?

"I don't ever understand what's between you or Sai, but that's the fun in chasing you and having you chase me. Didn't you know that, Hikaru?" His warm voice penetrated deeply inside of me. His words, gentle yet firm at the same time, always took a hold of me. He put his arm over my back. "In the process of finding your shadow, I was able to meet the you that no one else could ever see."  
My eyes opened in surprised as I looked at his neck.

"It's like the game you recreated for me. The one between Sai and my father. You explained everything and found a path that no one else found. And right then and there, at the go salon we first met at, you told me it was okay for me to hold your hand to teach you how to properly place the stones. Even though you knew how, you admired how I could always do it so confidently. I was so touched, I actually found myself kissing you."  
You turned your eyes towards me. "And then, remember Ichikawa-san was so surprised to see us? Not because we were kissing, but that I had finally told you how I felt about you."  
"She knew?!" My voice squeaked.  
"She told me from the time you left me alone to figure out our first game, I'd been waiting for you to come back to me. Women know about these things. I don't know how else to describe it but that was the way she told me."  
He blushed again.

That morning, I napped on his hospital bed as he held me, even when the nurse came in to check up on him.

 ***/*/*/***

Three more days passed and we started up the match again. After about two weeks, we finished five games, the fastest set anyone had ever seen. So many people said our moves were very interesting and evolved as the games continued. The newspapers even wrote that they wished it lasted longer and that they couldn't wait to see us battle it out again, but that wouldn't have been for a while.

We left the Go Institute separately, but when we both arrived home, the usually composed Akira put the key into the keyhole of our apartment and dropped his bags as soon as the door closed behind him.  
Before I could even say, "Okaeri," he already tenderly grabbed my cheeks and licked my lips before kissing me. Ripping my shirt open, five black and white buttons fell to the floor. I stumbled as he pushed me back against the wall.  
I sat there with my back pressed against the wall as his hands pressed down my own onto the wooden floor. Kneeling like a cat, this was the first time I'd seen Akira this sexy before.

I had wondered before why he always held back as much as I had tried to runaway from the image of Sai inside his mind. It was only now, years later, when I looked into these eyes that I realized he'd been watching me all this time, wanting me not to reject him...

...because he loved me more than Go.

That was what I had been hiding from all this time. I didn't know if I could have handled his intense feelings.  
Only now, I was confident that I could.

Licking my neck, I shivered. But then, I reached out and unbuttoned his shirt to slip it off his shoulders. Hugging him tighter and tighter, he began to kiss my shoulders while undoing the button of my jeans and pulled the zipper down…

Was that dream you saw our future, Akira? I was still a little disturbed that I looked young in his dream but I couldn't think of that now. Whatever form it takes, I want to exist to meet you again!

I was about to say something, but in between the kisses and breaths of air, you whispered, "You aren't alone anymore."

I came into this world because you absorbed me with your lonely, yet concentrated eyes, but you came out into reality from my energy.

Like Torajirou existed for Sai and Sai lived for me...  
...I want to be the one for you, Akira.

Surely, we will always find one another. I don't doubt that any longer.

 **Owari./The End.  
**

 **Author's note –**

Even if it's a little late, because it was Iroirona's 5th year anniversary, I wanted to do a title I'd not done in a while. ^_^  
There are many things I want to say, but it would be insufficient. Hikaru no Go is like Gravi in the sense that I always go back to it. And, I will always find something more to learn about. Akira, I realize now, is the kind person I admire and want to become. Without fear, he always steps forward. That is why I wrote from Hikaru's perspective instead of Akira this time.

Thank you for always being patient with me!

Love,  
Yui

9/3/2006 8:15:19 AM / LA  
9/4/06 12:15 AM / Tokyo


End file.
